Chapter 25
Corbin
Sebbie seemed to understand that this wasn’t a dream. He also seemed to understand and accept the fact that he was a ferryman. I didn’t think he’d dealt with the reaper side of things, but I wouldn’t push him to deal with anything he wasn’t ready for.
We had an eternity together. We would figure it all out.
He slipped his hand into mine as we walked toward the forest path.
Crow cawed up ahead, flying into the forest as we got closer.
It was… foreboding. This place was usually a little overcast, although Sebbie often made the sun come out.
Right now, the forest emanated darkness.
It was like a deep, oily sludge was flowing through the air and coating everything.
I could smell, ever so slightly, the scent of rot.
We stopped at the path’s entrance, Sebbie took a deep breath, and then, still holding my hand, he led us into the woods.
Crow led the way, flying from tree to tree, but we didn’t need her guidance.
The path only led in one direction, and Sebbie knew where to go.
If he hadn’t, I would have. The rotten presence ahead was disconcerting in this place. It so very clearly did not belong here.
As we walked, I wondered if that was part of Sebbie’s conflicted feelings. A ferryman ferried souls to the afterlife. There was the implication, I thought, that most of those souls were good. At least they were for Sebbie.
And that made sense. If someone was hellbound, they just went to hell.
There was no scenic river cruise on the way there.
Perhaps ferrymen didn’t deal with “not nice” people, or hellbound souls, and that was why Sebbie was so uncomfortable with his reaper side.
Reapers were death, and they brought it to anyone who was due, good or bad.
Somehow, Sebbie was collecting souls and bringing them here, and that meant the good ones and the bad ones. The bad ones didn’t feel like they belonged here, and I wasn’t sure why they weren’t just going straight to hell.
I squeezed Sebbie’s hand in support, and he looked over and gave me a slight smile. Maybe he wasn’t equipped to deal with the bad souls, but I was. I was his hellhound, and I would always take care of anything that needed to be done.
Sebbie blew out a breath when we made it to the stone pile in the middle of the path. Neither of us were surprised to see it.
“No one died near me. Not that I know of, anyway. I don’t understand why this is here,” he commented, running his hands along the stone.
It didn’t break away yet, but I could see cracks and fissures, like it was slowly breaking down.
“I don’t even have any recent blank spaces in my memory,” he added, looking at me. “Because I think they have something to do with the things I don’t know.”
I wasn’t sure how much to say, but I didn’t want him to be surprised. “I think that this has been here for quite awhile.”
Sebbie tilted his head. “You know who it is.”
“I think so, yes,” I answered. “I think it’s the woman from the cult.”
Sebbie looked surprised, then he seemed thoughtful. “I was there when Thea killed her. I did deal with the other guy from that basement, too, so it makes sense.”
I started to say something, but then I held back. It wasn’t my place to correct Sebbie’s memories.
Sebbie walked around the stones, his hands trailing along them. “She wasn’t… human, was she?”
“She was Nephilim. It’s the offspring of an angel or demon mating with a human. It doesn’t happen anymore, but it did very long ago, and the descendants still exist. She was one of those descendents,” I told Sebbie.
“Why did she kidnap me?” He stopped and looked at me. “You know, it’s funny, but I never really asked why all that happened. I mean, I knew it had to do with Aiden’s family, but she wasn’t Aiden’s family, was she?”
“A group of Nephilim was apparently trying to achieve immortality, and she was their leader. They chose mates based on Nephilim characteristics, and they were using a weapon to try and drain immortality from others.”
Sebbie’s face showed utter disgust. “You can’t cheat death.”
“No. No, you can’t. And she found that out,” I said.
“She didn’t look right. I’d forgotten that part. I thought it was a costume, but it wasn’t, was it?” Sebbie asked.
“No. She had wings and horns, although they were… incomplete. She was an abomination,” I said.
The smell was getting stronger, and the cracks were growing on the rocks. Sebbie stopped walking around them and came to stand next to me.
“She doesn’t belong on my boat,” Sebbie said.
“No. She doesn’t. I’ll take care of her,” I assured him.
With that, the rocks cracked further, and Sebbie and I both stepped back as they tumbled to dust. What they revealed was more hideous than I remembered.
Her eyes were black, her teeth partly rotten.
She was emaciated, and her wings were bare in many patches, no feathers to be seen.
One horn was broken off, and the other looked brittle.
She hissed at us like a wild cat, her hands coming up defensively.
I shifted into my hellhound without a thought, ready to send her soul to hell.
Before I could pounce on her, she surprised me by taking flight.
I jumped to reach her, but she was already gone, traveling across the gray sky.
Her flight was erratic, dipping and rising, and I almost thought she’d crash into the trees.
She was heading toward the river, and panic flowed through me. What would happen if she made it there? What would happen if she was able to fly across it?
I looked at Sebbie. He was wearing his cloak and had his staff in hand, although both were bright pink and bejeweled. He didn’t look the least bit worried, which eased something in me.
He sighed. “Of course she’s gonna be difficult. Let’s go, then.”
I trotted along at his side as we walked the path back out of the forest. Crow came and landed on my back, and Sebbie rested a hand on my shoulder as we walked, heedless of the flames. He didn’t seem in a rush, and I followed his lead. This was, after all, his place.
We made it into the clearing, and I could see the woman up ahead, pacing along the bank of the river. She tried to take flight once or twice, but she was unable to.
“Duh,” Sebbie murmured when he saw her try again.
Apparently you couldn’t fly over the river.
As we approached, the woman heard us, turned around, and hissed again.
“Um, hi,” Sebbie said, and he sounded like an exasperated customer service agent. “So, you can’t fly over the river. You’re dead. Sorry about that. Well, actually, not sorry about that, because you were, like, really awful apparently.”
“I cannot die. I am immortal,” she hissed out, turning to fully face us.
“Well, I guess you can,” Sebbie snarked. “That’s the river that leads to the underworld, and the only way to get across it is with me. And I’m not taking you on my boat. Like, hell no.”
She looked at Sebbie, seeming to weigh her thoughts. “You were the human I kidnapped.”
“Yeah, well, apparently I’m not so human after all,” Sebbie answered, spreading his arms and holding his staff out.
“Kind of freaky, but I’m dealing with it.
Also, there’s hellhounds and stuff.” Sebbie stroked my back.
“He’s gonna be the one to give you a one-way ticket to hell.
Usually, I’d feel bad about that, but you’re an awful person and you’re rude.
So, I’m thinking you’re gonna get exactly what you deserve. ”
I took that as my cue, and I started forward toward the woman.
She smiled evilly, and then she turned her back and strode into the water.
I went to follow her, but I was suddenly unable to move.
My limbs were paralyzed, although my head wasn’t, and I could breathe.
I turned my head to look at Sebbie, but he was looking at the woman.
She had stopped wading into the river, and she was standing there, knee deep in the water.
“You chose the harder path,” Sebbie told her.
She turned toward his voice, but… she looked lost. Confused. Her face was slack. She looked down at her legs, like she was unsure how she’d gotten into the river.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked.
Sebbie didn’t answer her. With a sigh, he sat down on the bank, and suddenly I could move again. I walked back toward him, laying down beside him. He rested a hand on my back. I could sense sadness in him.
The woman’s face got more and more slack, like her very personality was being leeched out of her and into the river.
I wracked my brain on underworld rivers.
I thought that erasing someone’s memories and personality was a result of touching the river.
I had forgotten about that. Acheron was also known as the “River of Woe,” if I remembered correctly.
The woman looked like she tried to move, like she tried to walk out of the river, but she fell to her knees in the water, her hand sinking down as well to support herself.
That was when the wailing began.
I’d tortured evil souls. I’d made people scream in pain and agony and misery. I’d never particularly liked the sound, but I had known that it was deserved, and I hadn’t felt sorry for the victims. They deserved the pain for the evil things they had done.
This… This was far worse. I had never heard such sounds come from a mortal before.
There was something about it that was utterly heartbreaking.
I looked over at Sebbie, and I noticed that he had tears running down his face.
I leaned over and licked at his tears, resting against him in comfort.
He turned toward me and snuggled into my fur, like perhaps that could block out the sound of the woman’s keening.
It seemed to go on for a long time.
Eventually, raspy weeping was all that was left.
Sebbie stayed huddled in my fur, and I watched as the woman…
sort of melted. I’d never seen anything like it.
It was like the river consumed her, making her a part of itself.
Soon there were only dull lights where the woman had been, and the way the lights pulsed and fluttered in the water made me think of pain. Then, as I watched, there was nothing.
Whatever had happened to the woman was done, and it seemed very final.
Sebbie eventually lifted his face from my fur, wiping his eyes. I wanted to be able to hug him, and then I was human again, sitting on the ground next to him.
I grabbed him, pulled him into my lap, and wrapped my arms around me. I gently rocked back and forth, making soft noises against him and rubbing his back and his arms.
“Shh, it’s okay, baby. It wasn’t your fault. She made her choice,” I assured him.
“I didn’t know how awful it would be,” Sebbie said, sniffling against my chest. “I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t know how bad.”
“It’s okay. She was evil. She killed many people and caused much suffering. She was an abomination,” I reassured him.
“She’s a lost soul now. There’s nothing left of her but woe.”
“You didn’t send her into the river. And she would have been tortured in hell anyway,” I told him.
He sighed, pulling back and wiping his eyes. “This is worse. I’m not sure how I know that, but I do. The pieces of her soul will suffer forever, but she won’t even know why. There’s nothing left of her. I should have saved her.”
“No, little reaper. No. She did not deserve to be saved, and perhaps what happened to her is for the best,” I told him. “She made herself into something unnatural and wrong, and now that thing is no more. Perhaps she wasn’t meant for hell. You did the right thing.”
Sebbie nodded against me, his head hidden in my chest, although I wasn’t sure I had convinced him. I didn’t want him to feel any guilt, though. Her actions were not his responsibility. She had come to the end that she was supposed to come to.
I turned my head, sensing something, and I saw the man in black standing further down along the shoreline. He looked sad and worried for Sebbie, and he nodded his head at me. I nodded my head back. I would take care of him.
“I’ll be here when you’re ready, old friend,” he said, looking at Sebbie, and then he was gone.
In the next blink, I was suddenly back in the bedroom. It was slightly dizzying. Sebbie was still in my lap, but his cloak and staff were gone—not that I was sure where his staff had been when we were cuddling.
I continued to rock him, giving him time. Finally, he lifted his head. I gave him a soft kiss on the mouth, letting our lips linger against each other.
When he pulled away, he let out a long sigh. “That was real, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Although I wish, with all my heart, that I could take the pain of that memory away from you.”
“It’s okay,” Sebbie answered, sounding a little dazed and out of it. “At least you were there to share it with. I wasn’t alone. I was always alone before.”
“You can tell me about it if you want to, but you don’t have to remember if you’re not ready. I’ll love you no matter what.” I leaned forward and kissed his lips again. “And it’s not your fault. Do you understand me, Sebbie? It’s Not. Your. Fault. You have nothing to feel bad about.”
“I guess so,” he muttered, and I knew I’d have to continue to tell him that until he believed me.
He was obviously lost in thought, and I let him have a moment, just being present for him. Not five minutes had passed before he gasped, his entire body tense.
“‘I don’t want the sheriff on my boat.’ That’s what I said. Does that mean the sheriff is in danger? We have to save him, Corbin. He can’t die. Not now. Things have changed. I don’t even know what that means, but he can’t die.” Sebbie looked at me, panic in his eyes.
“We won’t let him die, little reaper. We’ll save him.”
I wasn’t sure how, or even where the danger was, but I knew Sebbie was right. Sheriff Paul couldn’t die. He was Jude’s mate. He was pack. He was ours, even if he didn’t know it yet, and none of us would let him die.
Death wasn’t an option.